The loads placed on existing data centers and other networks are increasing as internet traffic continues to rise, driven by an increasing number of high bandwidth devices such as smart phones, tablets, laptops and gaming consoles and also by other data intensive and speed dependent applications such as video communications and stock trading.
Conventional data center networks suffer from poor scalability and are prone to other faults and limitations including bandwidth bottlenecking and single point failure.
Hybrid electrical/optical switching systems such as that of U.S. Pat. No. 8,503,879 are known to address bandwidth problems of conventional data center networks. However, such systems are complex resulting in high manufacturing times and costs.
Thus, there is a need for an optical bridge addressing these shortcomings.